Kiss and Kill by Ellery Queen Page B

an unearthly screech and an enormous Bronx cheer of air brakes. But the bus was coming too fast. Its bulldog front bounced Johnny into the air, arms and legs flapping like a rag doll’s. He landed on the asphalt ahead of the bus.
    To Claire, everything was small, far away.
    She saw Johnny start crawling on his elbows. Then the front wheels of the bus ran over his waist.…
    The next thing Claire felt was Liz rubbing her wrists and Rodney Aiken bathing her forehead with a beer-soaked handkerchief.
    â€œJohnny,…” she moaned.
    â€œThey carried him off in the ambulance,” said Liz. “Easy, Claire.”
    â€œDead?”
    â€œAlmost,” muttered the schoolteacher. “Bleeding internally. We’ll take you there.”
    She managed to get to her feet. She tried not to look at the blood where Johnny had fallen. But something caught her eye. It was the statuette he had tried to give her the night before. All at once it seemed profoundly significant. She picked it up and put it in her purse.
    At the hospital, gray-faced Maynard Barton started to apologize. “I feel it’s my fault. If I hadn’t yelled that way—”
    â€œLet her go in, Maynard,” said his wife. “He’s been asking for you, honey.”
    Claire walked into the room. It was a death’s head on the pillow. “Johnny?” she wept.
    He opened his eyes full and mumbled: “Mona … Mona …”
    Then he died.
    That’s the way it goes, Claire thought later. You love a man, and he dies with another woman’s name on his lips.

6
    â€œNobody could enjoy himself after that,” said Claire. “I was in a daze. We canceled out the visits to Guanajuato and Dolores Hidalgo and came back to the States.”
    They were eating in a roadside diner. Barney and Ed had decided to avoid greasy foods—they were both having problems—and Barney was sipping cream of asparagus soup and milk, while Ed made a meal of soda crackers and oyster stew. Claire, however, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying a steak and French fries, as if, having tossed her destiny into Barney’s lap, she had thrown off all her worries, too. The thought weighted him down a little. Ed and Claire were like two orphans abandoned on his doorstep.
    â€œAre you sure he mentionned a girl’s name?” asked Barney. “Mona?”
    â€œHis voice was very faint, but I heard it.”
    â€œ Mona means a female monkey in Spanish. ‘ La mona, aunque se veste de seda, mona se queda .’”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œâ€˜The monkey, although she dresses in silk, remains a monkey.’” Barney smiled. “He couldn’t have had very good taste. Don’t take that personally,” he said quickly. “I meant where this Mona was concerned.”
    Her delicate face turned pink, and Barney decided he liked that. That bastard Talbot had been a lucky man until that bus clipped him. Hurray for Mexican bus drivers.
    â€œAnyway,” Claire said, “Johnny could barely say ‘hello’ in Spanish. So it couldn’t have meant that.”
    Barney shrugged. “We’ll probably never know. The tour director arranged for Talbot’s burial, I take it?”
    Claire nodded. “But I asked for his things, and got them.”
    â€œOh? What were they?”
    â€œNothing unusual. Watch, wallet—” She stopped. “There was something unusual. There were no photographs, no snapshots, none of those little notes and business cards which tend to accumulate. His wallet was almost bare.”
    â€œMoney?”
    â€œVery little. Less than a hundred dollars Mexican.”
    â€œSuitcase?”
    â€œWasn’t found. The man who hauled him from Tula to San Juan del Rio said he’d come to the taxi empty-handed.”
    â€œBut he had it in Tula?”
    â€œI couldn’t be sure, you know. I was sort of distracted by my own scene.”